Tackling Tariffs with Industrial Technology

This week: Hannover Messe 2025 live brief, USA levies 10% tariffs, metal shaping with AI and robotics, finger structure auto plants, low-cost force-feedback teleoperation robotics, PFAS destruction.

Apr 06, 2025

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Shop Talk

Capturing this week's zeitgeist

At Hannover Messe 2025, automation and Industrial AI technologies took center stage, showcasing how manufacturers are accelerating digital transformation to maintain competitiveness in an increasingly complex global market. These advancements in digital manufacturing, connected workers, and autonomous production systems represent more than technological evolution—they are essential for navigating the challenging tariff landscape. As these trade barriers continue to reshape global supply chains, companies that leverage Industrial AI to optimize production efficiency, reduce waste, and enable manufacturing flexibility gain critical advantages in managing increased costs and maintaining margins. Lorenzo Veronesi of IDC did a great job summarizing the technologies demonstrated at Hannover Messe needed to develop resilience against tariff-driven market disruptions.

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Assembly Line

This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.

🎪 Hannover Messe 2025 Roundup

Hannover Messe was a major success! Exponential Industry and The IT/OT Insider joined forces on Tuesday morning at the Crosser booth. Check out all the announcements below.

Celebration

Hermes Awards 2025: Siemens Generative AI-Powered Assistant Goes for the Win /MachineDesign/
Festo's "Incredible Machine" inspires German Chancellor /Festo/
Riyadh to Host Industrial Transformation Saudi Arabia This December /Saudi Press/

Digital Manufacturing

Hexagon boosts global manufacturing agility with Digital Factory as-a-service launch /Hexagon/
Unleashing Manufacturing’s Potential: SAP’s Vision for an Adaptive, AI-Driven Future /SAP/
GIANT Bicycles and Siemens: revolutionizing sports bikes /Siemens/
Rockwell Automation to Launch Emulate3D Factory Test /Rockwell Automation/ and collaborate with AWS /PR Newswire/
Schneider Electric Demonstrates Technologies Shaping the Future of Industry /GlobeNewswire/
Bosch offers intelligent and efficient solutions for industry /Bosch/

Sustainability

The Future of Manufacturing - Siemens, Haddy and CEAD /YouTube/
Delta Demonstrates How its AI-Enabled Solutions Foster Intelligent Industries and Sustainable Energy Transition /PR Newswire/
LZH and the Jade University of Applied Sciences present their research on hydrogen production /LZH/

Robotics & Automation

Accenture and Schaeffler Pave the Way for Industrial Humanoid Robots with NVIDIA and Microsoft Technologies /Accenture/
Delta Introduces Cognibot Kit, Empowering its D-Bot Series Cobots with Advanced Cognitive Capabilities /Delta EMEA/
ROKAE Highlights of Hannover Messe 2025 /YouTube/
MIRAI Use Case: Siemens Energy /YouTube/

Industrial AI & DataOps

HighByte Announces Support for Amazon S3 Tables /HighByte/
Litmus Announces Strategic Partnership with Microsoft Azure IoT Operations /Litmus/
Bringing Edge AI to Rust: Introducing the Edge Impulse Rust Library /Edge Impulse/
Quartic DataOps - UNS Compliant Industrial DataOps for Batch Manufacturing /YouTube/

🦾 Machina Labs: The Future of Metal Shaping with AI & Robotics

🚙🏭 BMW Group Plant Debrecen enters the finish straight: Heartbeat of the plant comes to life with ramp-up of assembly with unique layout

When planning the new production site in Hungary, the BMW Group used a completely virtual design process. In line with the principles of the BMW iFACTORY, the tried-and-tested standards and high-tech solutions from existing plants were referred to many times. For example, many ideas and proven structures from Plant Lydia in China and Plant Leipzig can be found in the assembly in Debrecen.

These structures include the so-called finger structure, or comb structure, which the BMW Group developed specifically for Plant Leipzig, which opened in 2005. This structure allows supply parts and preassembled modules to be transported directly to the assembly lines. A record proportion of parts, up to 80%, can be delivered directly in Debrecen, as the fingers will enjoy logistics supply from both sides for the first time. This is the highest ratio in the BMW Group’s production network. The finger structure allows subsequent extension and the integration of further assembly steps – flexibility is a characteristic of production at the BMW Group.

📐 3D Files and an AI Agent

Software Creates Work Instructions From CAD Files /ASSEMBLY/

📖 FACTR is now open source! You can now build your own low-cost force-feedback teleop system.

Many contact-rich tasks humans perform, such as box pickup or rolling dough, rely on force feedback for reliable execution. However, this force information, which is readily available in most robot arms, is not commonly used in teleoperation and policy learning. Consequently, robot behavior is often limited to quasi-static kinematic tasks that do not require intricate force-feedback. In this paper, we first present a low-cost, intuitive, bilateral teleoperation setup that relays external forces of the follower arm back to the teacher arm, facilitating data collection for complex, contact-rich tasks. We then introduce FACTR, a policy learning method that employs a curriculum which corrupts the visual input with decreasing intensity throughout training.

GitHub links: Hardware, Teleop, Training

New Product Introduction

Highlighting new and innovative facilities, processes, products, and services

Lummus Achieves Major Milestone In Destroying “Forever Chemicals”

Lummus Technology announced the successful startup and operation of its per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) destruction demonstration unit. The at-scale, commercial-ready system uses a combination of advanced technology from Lummus and Element Six (E6) to destroy PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals.”

Housed at the Lummus Green Circle Labs in LaPorte, Texas, the PFAS destruction demonstration unit does not just modify PFAS to pass analytical testing but destroys the carbon fluoride bonds during the treatment of the PFAS waste. The unit is available for customer use to evaluate water samples and provides certified data for customers to review with regulators to improve their water supplies. In addition, the technology is available for sale to industrial and municipal water facilities that want to perform their own on-site PFAS compound destruction.

Ansys, Baker Hughes, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory Set New Supercomputing Record for CFD on AMD Instinct GPUs

Ansys (NASDAQ: ANSS) announced groundbreaking results from the largest commercial Fluent CFD simulation ever run on AMD Instinct™ MI250X GPUs. Leveraging the power of the Frontier exascale supercomputer, powered by AMD EPYC™ CPUs and Instinct GPUs, Ansys and energy company Baker Hughes scaled Fluent to 1,024 GPUs, offering unparalleled insight into aerothermal physics at large operating pressures. By pairing physical tests with virtual ones, Ansys simulation helps customers achieve faster design cycles and optimizes development costs. Baker Hughes uses Ansys Fluent to support the design of its next-generation gas turbines and other turbomachinery equipment to improve energy conversion efficiency and, ultimately, reduce carbon footprints.

Compared to methods that utilize over 3,700 CPU cores, Baker Hughes and Ansys reduced the overall simulation run time from 38.5 hours to just 1.5 hours using 1,024 AMD Instinct MI250X GPUs. This record-breaking scaling allows for faster design iterations and more accurate predictions, which are capable of unlocking more sustainable technologies and products.

Kawasaki Unveils Hydrogen-Powered CORLEO Robot

Kawasaki Heavy Industries unveiled the CORLEO at the Osaka-Kansai Expo 2025, a hydrogen-powered, four-legged robotic vehicle designed for human riders. The CORLEO merges robotics with motorcycle technology, featuring adaptive hooves for diverse terrains, intuitive controls via body movement, and a silent hydrogen engine, highlighting a focus on sustainability. This innovative vehicle has captured public interest for its futuristic design and potential to redefine off-road mobility.

Business Transactions

This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains.

🇬🇧 Investindustrial Raises €4 Billion for Flagship Mid-Market Fund /Bloomberg/
🇺🇸 Construct Capital raises $300M fund for defense and manufacturing tech /TechCrunch/
🇺🇸 Iron Prairie Ventures Raises $15M Pre-Seed and Seed Fund /VCWire/ following investments in Arvist, Bastazo, SysGit, Agloma, and more!

🇨🇭 Bloom Biorenewables raises CHF 13M for sustainable materials development

Bloom Biorenewables, a Switzerland-based cleantech company, has raised CHF 13 Million in a Series A funding round to advance its Aldehyde-Assisted Fractionation (AAF) technology. The funding will support scaling the process and developing first-of-a-kind (FOAK) commercial-scale units to accelerate the shift toward renewable carbon sources.

Anaïs Ventures and Valquest Partners led the round, which included Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Lombard Odier, Capital Risque Fribourg, Btomorrow Ventures, Amcor Ventures, Rosebrook, and The King Baudouin Foundation on behalf of R&Co4Generations, the Rothschild & Co philanthropic fund.

🇺🇸 Fourier is making hydrogen electrolyzers inspired by data centers

The startup has operated two lab-scale pilots, which make about a kilogram of hydrogen per hour, with a pharmaceutical manufacturer and a solar energy company. Up next are two commercial-scale pilot plants, one at a petrochemical plant in Ohio and another at a company in Fremont, California, that makes airline parts. Both should be operating by June. Ultimately, Fourier is targeting customers that need 6 to 20 kilograms per hour, which would require around 300 kilowatts to 1 megawatt of electrolyzer capacity.

Fourier’s potential commercial customers, which include pharmaceutical, petrochemical, and ceramics manufacturers, pay around $13 to $14 per kilogram today. Yellamraju said that his company can deliver hydrogen for $6 to $7 per kilogram, not including any government incentives. “With our margin, they’re still saving half the price of hydrogen,” he said.

Investors have taken note, with General Catalyst and Paramark Ventures leading an $18.5 million Series A round, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. Other participating investors include Airbus Ventures, Borusan Ventures, GSBackers, MCJ Collective, and Positive Ventures.